Reservation Notifications
"Did the guest actually get the link?" is the question the front desk asks most often, and the answer is always in the same place: the Notifications tab of the reservation detail drawer. It lists every notification LIKE MAGIC has sent for this reservation, what it was, when it went out, and how far it got.
This article is the reference for that tab: how to read the list, what each delivery status means, and how to resend a message or send a new one.
1. Who Can Use This
The Notifications tab is part of the reservation detail drawer, so it is available to front-desk staff with the Host role and to the property and account administrator roles.
The tab requires Platform pricing. Without it the tab stays visible but shows a lock, and opening it presents an upgrade prompt instead of the list. See Pricing Tiers.
2. Opening the Tab
- Open the Reservations Overview.
- Click the reservation row, and the detail drawer opens on the right.
- Select the Notifications tab.
The tab shows one section, Sent Notifications, with a count next to the heading: how many notifications have gone out for this reservation in total. If nothing has been sent yet, the tab reads This booking has no notifications sent.
Screenshot: the Notifications tab of the reservation detail drawer, showing the Sent Notifications list (to be added).
ℹ️ The list covers notifications sent for this reservation. Messages a guest sent you, and replies your team wrote, live in the Communication Hub.
3. Reading the Sent Notifications List
Each row is one notification, newest first. It carries five pieces of information:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Notification Template | Which message was sent - for example Reservation created, Check-In Reminder, Invoice. Underneath it, the channel icon and the exact address or phone number it went to. |
| Language | The language the message was sent in, written in your own language. |
| Sent | When the message left LIKE MAGIC, in the property's time zone. |
| Status | How far the message got - see section 4. |
| (unlabelled) | The row actions: Open notification and Resend. |
Two details are worth knowing:
- The recipient shown is the address that was actually used, not the address currently on the guest profile. If someone corrected the guest's email address yesterday, the row still shows where last week's message went, which is exactly what you need when you are reconstructing what happened.
- Sort by clicking Sent. The list opens newest first; clicking the Sent column header flips it to oldest first and back. On a long stay with dozens of messages, oldest-first is the faster way to see how the guest journey unfolded.
👤 On a phone the same rows render as a stacked list rather than a table. Every value carries its own label, so nothing is lost.
4. What the Delivery Status Tells You
The Status chip is the whole point of the tab. It is colour-coded, and the colour alone answers the support question:
a) Green (It Reached the Guest)
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Sent | LIKE MAGIC handed the message to the provider and the provider accepted it. |
| Accepted | The provider accepted the message for delivery. |
| Delivered | The provider confirmed the message arrived at the guest's mailbox or handset. |
| Received | The guest's device confirmed receipt. |
| Read | The guest opened the message on a messaging channel. |
Delivered is the healthy everyday state and the one you will see most. Anything green means the guest has the message and the link in it. If they still say they never got it, the message arrived somewhere the guest is not looking (a spam folder, an old address, a shared inbox).
b) Blue (On Its Way, or the Guest Engaged With It)
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Queued, not handed over yet. |
| Buffered | The provider is holding the message, typically because the guest's device is unreachable right now. |
| Dispatched | Handed to the provider. |
| Trasmitted | Passed on by the provider towards the guest. |
| Opened | The guest opened the email. |
| Clicked | The guest clicked a link inside the message. |
Opened and Clicked are the strongest evidence you can get: the guest not only received it, they acted on it. Pending, Buffered, Dispatched and Trasmitted are in-flight states. Give them a few minutes and refresh before resending.
c) Red (It Did Not Arrive)
| Status | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Bounce | The address rejected the message permanently - usually a typo or a closed mailbox. | Correct the address and resend (section 5). |
| Delivery Failed / Failed / Sending failed | The provider could not deliver it. | Check the address or phone number, then resend. |
| Rejected | The provider refused the message. | Check the address or phone number, then resend. |
| Delayed | Delivery is being retried and has not succeeded. | Wait, then resend on another channel if it stays red. |
| Expired | The delivery window closed before the message got through. | Resend. |
| Spam Complaint | The guest marked a message as spam. | Do not resend on that channel - use a different one, or hand the link over yourself. |
| List Unsubscribe | The guest unsubscribed. | Do not resend on that channel. |
| Unsupported | The channel cannot carry this message. | Resend on a different channel. |
| Out of Bounded / Deleted | The provider reported the message as out of scope or removed. | Resend, on another channel if it repeats. |
⚠️ Spam Complaint and List Unsubscribe are guest decisions, not delivery faults. Resending on the same channel will not reach them and damages your sender reputation. Switch channels or hand the link over in a conversation instead.
d) Grey (Unknown)
Unknown means no delivery report has come back for this message. It is not the same as a failure: the message may well have arrived without the channel reporting it. Treat it as "no information", check whether the guest replied on another channel, and resend if the stay depends on it.
ℹ️ Not every channel reports every status: email tells you about opens and bounces, messaging channels tell you about delivery and reads. A message that stops at Sent on one channel and reaches Read on another is normal.
e) The Last-Interaction Line
Under the status chip you may see Last interaction: with a time. That is when the status last changed: when the bounce came back, when the guest opened it. Read it together with the Sent column: sent answers when we sent it, last interaction answers when we last heard anything about it.
5. Resending a Notification
Every row offers Resend: the same message, sent again, with a chance to correct where it goes.
- Find the row and click Resend. The Resend the Message dialog opens.
- Language and Channel are pre-filled with what was used originally. Change either if needed. The language list holds your property's configured languages, and the channel list holds the channels enabled for the property.
- The address field follows the channel: Email for email, Phone Number for SMS and WhatsApp. It is pre-filled with the original recipient. Correct it if that was the problem.
- Click Resend. A banner confirms the action, and a new row appears in the list.
⚠️ Correcting the address, phone number, language or channel here also updates them on the reservation's primary guest. This is deliberate. A wrong email address is wrong for every later message too, so fixing it once fixes the rest of the journey. It does not apply to Booking created, Booking reminder and Companion added, which go to the booker or a travel companion rather than the primary guest; correcting those affects only the resend.
💡 Resend keeps the original template, so it is the right tool when the right message went to the wrong place. When you need a different message, use Send New Notification (section 6).
6. Sending a New Notification
Send New Notification, at the top right of the Sent Notifications section, sends a message out of sequence: a confirmation the guest never got, a pre-arrival message for a late booking, payment instructions before the guest travels.
- Click Send New Notification.
- Template: pick the message. The list holds the templates available for this reservation.
- Recipient: search for and pick the guest profile that should receive it. Choosing the template pre-fills the recipient, channel, language and contact details from the reservation, so in the common case you can leave all four alone.
- Channel and Language: adjust if needed, from the property's enabled channels and configured languages.
- Confirm or correct the Email or Phone Number.
- Click Send. A banner confirms, and the message appears in Sent Notifications with its own status.
ℹ️ Send stays disabled until a channel and a language are set. If Send New Notification itself is greyed out, the reservation does not currently allow it (see section 8).
🛎️ Sending a notification here does not change the automated journey. The guest still receives the scheduled messages configured for your property (see Automated Guest Notifications).
7. Opening the Message Itself
The Open notification icon at the end of a row opens that exact message in the Communication Hub, so you can read what the guest read (the wording, the link, the attachments) and carry on the conversation from there.
When the icon is greyed out, its tooltip reads Opening notification not possible: that notification has no readable conversation behind it. The row still tells you the template, the recipient, the time and the status; only the message body is unavailable.
8. "Did the Guest Get the Link?" (the Short Path)
The guest says they cannot check in online. Work through it in this order:
- Open the Notifications tab and look for the message that carries the link: Check-In Introduction, Reservation created, Check-In Reminder, or Resend guestflow link.
- No such row? Nothing was sent. Check whether the reservation qualifies for the automated messages (Automated Guest Notifications), then send one yourself (section 6).
- Row is green? It arrived. Check the recipient shown on the row. If it is not the address the guest is reading, that is the answer. Resend to the correct address (section 5).
- Row is red? Read the status in section 4c and act on it (usually correct the address and resend).
- Row is blue and recent? It is still in flight. Wait a few minutes and reload before sending anything again.
- Still stuck? Hand the link over yourself with Copy Guest Link from the reservation Action Menu (⋮) and paste it into a conversation the guest is already reading. It works whatever the reservation's status.
9. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The Notifications tab shows a lock | Your plan does not include it | See Pricing Tiers |
| This booking has no notifications sent | Nothing has gone out for this reservation yet | Send one with Send New Notification (section 6) |
| Send New Notification is greyed out | The reservation does not currently allow a custom notification | Check the reservation is still live; if it is, request help via a Support Ticket |
| No Resend button on the rows | Resending is not available on this reservation | Use Copy Guest Link from the Action Menu (⋮) to hand the link over yourself |
| The channel you want is missing from the dialog | That channel is not enabled for the property | See Messaging Channels; activation runs through a Support Ticket |
| The language you want is missing | It is not one of the property's configured languages | Request the additional language via a Support Ticket |
| Status stays Unknown | No delivery report came back for this message | Confirm with the guest on another channel; resend if the stay depends on it |
| The guest insists nothing arrived, but the row is green | It reached an address the guest is not reading, or landed in spam | Check the recipient on the row, resend to the correct address, or hand the link over from the Action Menu (⋮) |
10. Conclusion
The Notifications tab turns "did the guest get it?" from a guess into a two-second look: find the row, read the colour of the status chip, and either resend it to a corrected address or hand the link over another way. For the actions that live on the reservation itself (copying and resending the guest link), see Reservation Actions; for the messages that go out on their own, see Automated Guest Notifications; and for the tab's place among the rest of the drawer, see the Reservation Detail Drawer.